Difference between revisions of "Log:There's Fire"

6 December, 2018

The egg hatches for an explosive, fiery surprise.

The Hedge

Lolly, since no one else in the group overruled her plan, has taken the egg back to her apartment behind the strip club and tucked it into the fireplace in a bed of ashes and clinkers. She has a small fire going nearby to keep it warm, and a perforated screen in front of the hearth to help avoid sparks getting anywhere they shouldn't.

Since the club doesn't open until 4pm, and she IS just behind the place anyway, she has left her employees to their own devices beyond the bare minimum of instruction, and .. well, mostly she has parked herself to watch the egg.

And watch.

And watch. And keep watching. It isn't until it starts getting darker that she can really notice the glow, and THAT is when she gives Raymond a call, uneasy, asking him to stop by if he can/if the kids will be okay without him. You know. Better to have the violence expert on hand if something explodes. Maybe he can con Charlie into babysitting!

After dragging the carcasses back Raymond had other duties and responsibilities to take care of before coming around. Kids. Store. Dinner prep. However, he's able to finagle one of the in-laws into picking up and having fun with the kids for the early parts of the evening.

There's no telling what he was expecting when he arrived, but this clearly wasn't it. Much of his brain is stuck on confusion as he makes his way around, offering a wave to a few of the people around while asking for directions. Eventually he makes his way up there, and knocks on the door. "It's me," he calls through the door. "Raymond."

To get to her apartment, he'll need to go through the Captain's Quarters (i.e. her office) or around the side of the building, depending on his preferences.

When he calls through the door, Lolly springs up (har har) and rushes over to unlock it, opening it and stepping back to let him step inside. "I, um, sorry for the decoration here. So sorry. Uncle Jack loved breasts very much." So pink. So, so turning pink. "Please forgive his mermaids. I just haven't had the money to re-do this place; he left the finances in an awful mess." From the sour-grapes tone, that's an understatement. "The egg is over here. Fireplace." She beats a hasty retreat thataway.

Raymond's looking around despite Lolly's explanations. He nods slowly, trying to take it all in and assumes, "So he really had a thing for mermaids. Good to, um, know." He has to take a deep breath, close his eyes, and let it out with a sigh. "It could be worse, but, man, I still wasn't expecting all this. Like you told me about the pirate stuff, but wow." He smiles, weakly, and moves to go look at the egg. "I think I'll take mermaids over flesh-eating bugs. Less freaky. Just a bit."

Lolly's been monitoring it all day, and can see the change more. It's -hot- and getting hitter. Enough so that the apartment itself is starting to get almost stuffy with the heat. It seems to be heating faster, too.

"I never, um." Lolly glances at Raymond, shrugging a little and giving him a small, wry smile. "My father and his brother didn't exactly see eye to eye. Father was very strict, very honourable, very, um. I didn't get to wear a bikini until I was in college. Uncle Jack? Parties, drinking, -this- place... I only met him once or twice before he died."

Upon reaching the egg, leaves him time to look at it, at how it seems to be glowing all on its own, and, uneasy, asks, "D'you think we should get some more sand? I've been watching it all day, and I've never seen it ramp itself up like this." The bowls of various bird foods are just off to one side, seed, fruit, vegetables and raw meat sliced thin for easy swallowing.

The heat's almos pleasant to Raymond, and something he duly ignores for now. At least until it sinks in that it should be much colder with the weather and temperature from outside the room. For now he waxes poetic on Lolly's kin. "It sounds like Uncle Jack would've been a friend before the twins. Your dad now. Minus the honor bits." He shrugs, and then moves closer to the egg. Ray reaches out to place his hand on the egg, trying to guage just how hot it might be. "Worst case there's always Charlie's forge or I can start a fire somewhere near."

Hot enough to scorch and blister if Ray keeps contact more than a moment. From hit tea cup to a temperature akin to a pot cooking on the stove. And they can both feel the heat coming on hotter by the moment, building, the faint glow becoming more obvious - like watching the eye on a stove heating.

Listening to Raymond, Lolly laughs a bit and watches his hand with mild worry. "I can't imagine you being like Uncle Jack, but I guess I haven't really known you all that long." Whatever else she might have said is forestalled by just HOW hot that egg is getting, and, an iota of prudence occurring to her, she takes a sloooow step back. "I...um...I'm going to get the fire extinguisher. Just in case." The extinguisher isn't far, less than thirty feet away, and she double-checks the instructions on it. Just in case.

"Why do I feel like I should've brought my shield now?" The question hangs for anyone to answer, and ends with a shrug from Raymond. "If it explodes I think you should probably have more than a fire extinguisher." He pulls out a metal lighter, seemingly empty since he never smokes. In the next breath the horned fairest is immediately covered in metal. "Maybe you should back up a few feet," he calls over his shoulder.

Brighter. Reddish orange. Orange. Yellowy-orange. Brighter. The hue of a canary. Heat can be seen radiating in waves and it's hard to be within a few feet of it. Hot enough a brick in the fireplace cracks.

Staring at the metal in brief awe, Lolly's jaw snaps shut when he speaks, and she gulps a bit, nearly tripping over her own feet when she agrees, "I think that's a REALLY good idea. You, uh, please feel free to burn any mermaids you see the need to use."

"You should keep the mermaid. It adds a messed up kinda charm." Raymond's doing something he hasn't really done from the heat in ages now. He's sweating, and it comes through with a sheen on the metal of barely exposed flesh. His hoodie is tossed to the side to reveal a pink work shirt with the usual logo, jeans, and tennis shoes that look about as old as some of these mermaid posters. "Yeah, we may have to move this somewhere. Maybe. I kinda wish I paid attention in chemistry right about now."

Staring at the egg through the screen, Lolly uhhhhhs and shakes her head. "I don't think it's exactly safe for us to carry anywhere. I'll be, um."

See, here is where having ANY walls in your apartment is a good idea.

In lieu of a wall, Lolly hurries over to the wall nearer the entrance (farthest from the fireplace, which has a heap of junk way off to the left and her uncle's big bed some 15 feet away off to the right), where she can quickly empty the table there and turn it over. You know. Just in case.

Yellow gives way to an eye searing, near-white. The egg wibbles and woobles, then rocks to tue left, canting. Cracks of insanely bright light appear, the egg spider webbed before another rock cants it to the right. It lwans and there's a moment of stillness and a sense of... building pressure. Of heat and light.

The explosion of flame comes with a feeling of all the air being sucked out of the apartment before it's /exhaled/ with incredoble heat and white-blue flames as the ashen-mud egg shatters, the wings of the pheonix unfurling with a grand stretch... before it falls over with a soft warbling coo. Being reborn is tiring, yo.

Raymond was expecting something. Just like the pirate strip club, he got more than he bargained for. It explodes and leaves Raymond burning hot in more ways than one. He typically keeps the swearing to a minimum, but right about now he lets it all out. Just about every combination of fuck, shit, and damn that comes to mind; and he finds new, interesting ways for every combination thereof.

Lolly, less prone to swearing, nonetheless lets out a few choice numbers of her own. HERS, however, are all in Japanese, childhood default coming out under pressure. After unflattening herself from where she had been hiding behind the table, she squeaks an urgent, "I can fix this! I can fix this!" and squinches her eyes shut as she focuses on calling Spring into the very toasty Summer. It's a good thing she closed her eyes, too, because when she opens them, she gawps a bit gormlessly at the bird in her damaged fireplace, extinguisher loosely held in limpening fingers. "...Wow."

Of course, that was an explosion. Who knows where the food bowls are now? Lolly hops up, then moves sloooowly toward Raymond, asking a nervous, "Are you okay? Please be okay. I can heal you more!" while not taking her eyes off of the bird.

For a hatchling, it's pretty big. About the size it was before the briar wolves tore it apart. The feathers are already coming in - gorgeous, fiery shades that shimmer as if coated with super fine mica flecks. It warbles again, trying get to its feet and toppling sgain.

Raymond eventually calms down. Just a little. At the most he can't stop with the swearing, but the seething range is obvious within his mantle. He doesn't answer Lolly after the healing. No. Oh no. He stares down at that bird, all fire and brimstone. "Do me a favor since this thing..." His voice trails off as he motions to show off the damage done to the front of his clothes along with those newly acquired burn scars that have forced their way through the metal. "Call Charlene, and ask her to bring some clothes. I'm gonna go to the bathroom or something." Probably to scream his lungs out.

Lolly stares at Raymond, then squeeps as what he means becomes more obvious. "Oh, gosh! Um. Stay right there!" Dropping the fire extinguisher nearby, she rushes over to her bureau and pulls out an oversized silk lounging robe woven with, ironically, phoenixes and peonies. "The bathroom isn't, um, there isn't a room, per se. It's just that screen over there, and the toilet's a little persnickety. I have the plumber on speed dial if you need it."

While he's doing whatever he's doing, he can feel -her- doing more work on his injuries, Spring's gentler warmth spreading through Summer's heat. After a moment of thought, she tries it on the bird as well, stepping a teensy bit closer and, because of course all animals speak English, telling it, "I don't know if you're hurting, but I just want to help, okay? Okay." Gulp. It takes two tries, but the bird feels a similar wash of Springy breath throughout its birdy body, similarly refreshed and satiated.